i think that i've figured out why i don't like show sally.
ok like don't get me wrong, virginia kull?? she ATE with that interpretation. her acting?? amazing. like i could truly get the core of her character.
it's just that i don't like the character the writers give us.
cw: discussion of abusive relationships, of toxic family dynamics, probably a good bit of generational trauma. I don't really get into details except with stuff shown on the show and written in the books but i wanted to be safe.
as someone from an immigrant household, as someone whose mom works a part time minimum wage job, as someone whose seen and been there as my parents fought, i just really really dislike sally's portrayal in the show. and it's partly because of poseidon and partly because of gabe (mostly because of her character in general but yeah, lets get the men out of the way first)
I feel strongly about poseidon in his relationship to sally very specifically. i don't mind his relationship to percy either books or show. but it's pretty damn clear to me that this show was written by someone who's never experienced sally's situation, of being the single working parent with an absentee partner (or in gabe's case a partner who literally ahHHHHHh). because from the beginning, from sally's reaction and snark to gabe, I felt like something was wrong or off, and it was Specifically the show because i read the books and i watched (some) of the musical and i never felt that way towards either of those. i'm not saying that my family situation is sally's (don't have a god for a father for one), but. by all accounts sally knows that this is an abusive relationship, the only reason that she's with gabe is because of the protection he offers percy. i have to assume that this is true because sally jackson turning gabe to stone is something i'm assuming is staying in the show, and i remember this being mentioned by grover? or someone in the first few episodes. and the cord that struck in me was not the traditional (that is, visible, defined, i don't like this word but i don't have a better one) abusive relationship but relationships in my community, of women staying with husbands because of their children, women outright saying this, women who know the world is cruel to single women and to single mothers specifically. sally, to me has never been under any illusions that gabe is any sort of relationship material. she has never been under any illusions that poseidon would be able to help in any way.
and that crux of sally's relationships made her first scene in the show all that more jarring. but it's not anything specifically that i can put a finger on. and maybe i'm wrong for this or maybe i'm expecting too much. but. sally doesn't have the resentment or the quietness or the bitterness or even the loudness that i expected. you have been the only true caretaker for your child, the only one in the house that really puts food on the table and on top of that is expected to do emotional labor? to cook and clean or at least pick up the food?
but she treats gabe like he's an annoyance. someone to brush off. and you see the manipulation tactics from gabe, you do, but.
its not that i want sally's spirit to be crushed. my mother's spirit wasn't crushed. the women in my community, they laugh, they cry, they watch silly tv shows, they have lives that they live, and in many cases they live well.
but the women that i know are also angry. they are either on fire or they used to burn. when they banter with their partners it often turns ugly because they are tired of the same damn argument day after day, because often the trivial things that are asked are compounded and compounded and compounded because you live in the same house, there is no escape, there is no private space, not really.
it's new york and sally works a job to support an apartment and her family. they are not well-off. sally has no support network we can see, and how could she? poseidon mentions that she has no one to talk to about these things, her parents are clearly out of the picture. all this to say. there is a certain understanding of class that exists within the books that was excised, i believe unknowingly, from the show, and it is the worse for it. there is a tiredness, a worn-down-ness from being low income that sally had in the books, but in the show i only see a struggling first time single parent. i don't see the complexity of a woman who literally gave up on finding a fulfilling relationship to be with a man for her child. i don't see the complexity of a woman working fulltime and still getting demanded from at home. and i didn't realize that I wanted to see that until I saw the show. i didn't realize that that was what i loved about the books.
i hate that they tried to bring poseidon back into sally's life as this perfect man who through cosmic forces can't help. i hate that sally calls him, i hate that he says he'll listen. but most of all i hate that sally just accepts him, falls into him. it's really hard to be a mother when your partner doesn't seem to help you parent in any way, even if he cannot help you. he's a greek god, there's no way in hell that he can begin to understand the lengths that sally has gone through to sacrifice and survive, the very human things that she's done. sally in the books thinks of poseidon as a sweet memory, almost a fairytale, and it's clear that this story is the one that brings her comfort. poseidon is a one night stand, a sweet stranger, she understands he's not coming back. but this poseidon comes when sally calls, and that i cannot believe. i cannot believe that she still thinks of him as the fairytale man, that she accepts him so easily if there isn't that distance. i cannot believe that there is no resentment, that she still puts faith in him as her god (the first episode when she talks about him just felt so wrong to me) if he's not a memory, but a recurring figure. this is not a story of star-crossed lovers, sally feels too real as a human being for that.
sally finds trust, finds contentment, in the books after percy leaves home, after she no longer has to put up with gabe for his safety. she does not find poseidon again. she marries a human man, a very ordinary human man who cares for her. poseidon visits after she is in this relationship and its an amicable one. he is percy's father but also distant memory all in one. sally has the strength to survive a terrible relationship and still find a way to heal and live fully after that.
but the anger. the fire was there. she turned gabe to stone. she reclaimed her life with her two hands.
you don't kill a man for no reason. you don't kill a man without emotion.
but it's that reason and that emotion that i don't get from the writer's room. and it just makes me deeply sad.
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Affirming Luffy is aroace and using it as an excuse to talk shit about a ship is both fucked up and just extremely wrong. And I'm saying "wrong" in the sense of "actually not accurate" because Luffy is not canonically aroace. It is a very popular headcanon and he does seem uninterested in both romance and sex. So much you could even say it's coded. But inside of that term, which happens to be a spectrum, by the way, there are infinite possibilities and different ways of experiencing both aromanticism and asexuality. Affirming Luffy denies relationships like those completely is both inaccurate in canon and also extremely harmful for the aroace community because he could still be canonically aroace and want those relationships. Maybe in different ways. Maybe with little to no frequency. But still, saying it's "wrong" to ship him with people that way is insulting to the aroace community and to the fans of Luffy ships. Not to mention that the people who often use a character being "aroace" as an excuse (I'm referring to when the character is not canonically uninterested completely in those relationships, by the way) are not even aroace themselves. They use our identity only in negative situations. They speak about being allies, but only mention our existence when it comes to harmful statements and ship wars that don't even matter. There's so much you could say about Luffy being aroace! So many possibilities about his way of seeing the world and experiencing love in different ways! And yet, people decide to infantilize his character and make a whole deal out of him not knowing what sex is and being an innocent baby who doesn't know what masturbation is. He's nineteen. He's a pirate. He is not stupid, thank you very much. He knows what he's talking about, whether he wants to do it or not is a whole other story and it depends on your views on him. And infantilizing him only comes from a place of infantilization of the aroace identity itself, and it's so, so fucked up. Of course, these people are also the ones who treat him like a baby and excuse themselves by saying "those are neurodivergent traits" when they probably aren't even neurodivergent themselves. It's disgusting. And also, as a reminder, do not post hate comments about a ship in its tag. It's really mean. Hope I made things clear <3
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There's one thing bothering me about the whole "Merold lied about being the strongest knight" thing, and it's Kurode.
A large part of his character and driving motivation is the fact he's living in Merold's shadow, and wants to escape that by surpassing Merold. There's a chance that Kurode doesn't know that his older brother is lying about his accomplishments, but I find it strange that Kurode wouldn't be bothered by the fact people believe that Merold is extremely strong when he actually isn't.
Theory 1: Merold is actually very strong, but embellishes his accomplishments. He said that no Fragaria is capable of all the feats Hallritt listed off, but he never actually stated what his actual strength is. There's also the fact Romarriche pointed out that Merold phrased his words specifically in a way that would upset Hallritt and the others, so he's probably making it seem like he's a lot more powerless than he actually is. This satisfies both the fact that Merold is claiming that he's lying, and the fact that Kurode views him as a huge wall he needs to surpass.
Theory 2: Merold was that powerful at some point, but isn't anymore due to the SEEDs (since it was stated that they can make people and their "creations" disappear, so they're clearly capable of making things without a certain physical form disappear). There's no real evidence for this, but considering he seems to know more about the SEEDs than he lets on, I figured I'd throw it in here.
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Also, in response to the "testosterone making people angrier" myth, I've found that, personally, testosterone has given me the self-respect to recognize and call out when my boundaries are being overstepped in ways that I wouldn't have had the courage (or, frankly even liking of myself) to have done before. This is in addition to me working on my trauma responses, but testosterone was the spark that gave me the will to do this in the first place. When I see people sae that as anger and thus is a "bad thing," I wonder how much of that is just people being uncomfortable with us... having boundaries or enforcing them, and that the response to that overstepping is labeled as aggressive anger.
Frankly, I now actually respect myself enough to care when I am being mistreated. It seems that people sometimes take that as a personal failure on my end because I don't think I deserve mistreatment.
Caveat: Anger is a fine emotion, and it is a worthy thing to recognize and honour. I find that the accusation of trans men* and trans masc* people "being angry" on testosterone is a moot point simply because it is often a false accusation which uses anger as a punishment. My issue isn't that we're "angry," but that our perceived anger is used, often, as a transphobic bludgeon to punish those who either want to transition with testosterone or who currently are, and everything in-between.
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Uh? It’s CANON Gojo and geto saw each other as BROTHERS.
alright I’m gonna answer this now lmao — I think with fiction everyone is entitled to their own take on things but with gojo and geto I believe the two to be soulmates — whether it’s platonic or romantic —
I personally see it as romantic, but if you don’t that’s completely fine and I’m not here to force my opinion onto you — it was in the tags — you don’t like, don’t read it! That simple.
I mean I could explain to you why I see it as romantic —
gojo calls geto his “one and only,”
the button left behind when geto defects is his second button that gojo ends up with — the button often given in Japanese culture to romantic partners / interests,
gojo literally says, when he sees kenjaku in geto’s body, “I know in my soul you’re not suguru geto” even in the English dub they localized is as “in my heart and soul,”
to add to that, kenjaku’s whole plan hinged on gojo freaking out upon seeing geto’s body — gojo is someone who is always very calm — he only gets emotional when it comes to geto. literally itadori dies and megumi got taken over Sukuna and he stays completely calm (for the most part), nothing in comparison in his reactions to geto’s defection or kenjaku
geto’s body literally fights back against kenjaku when trying to hurt gojo — and kenjaku has been alive since the heian era at least, and he says he’s never seen that happen before — what that says about their connection is pretty clear cut in my opinion.
the whole theme of jjk 0 is that love is the most twisted curse of all — where did gojo learn that from? Obviously there’s more than one type of love — but this movie was focused on romantic love in particular (between yuta and rika) but also was reflecting on geto and gojo’s relationship
gojo’s last words to geto are allegedly three words according to the VAs and what else could they be? Other than the theme of the entire movie — “I love you???” and then Geto literally blushes in the manga and says, “at least you could have cursed me in the end” — which gojo kinda did.
there’s a whole bunch of other things I could analyze and I’m not here to debate with you or anyone else! it’s fiction — it’s up to us to interpret things that are vague. And you are entitled to your opinion — but what I don’t like is you telling me that my opinion is wrong when it’s not!
It’s vague in the manga for a reason. never did they call each other brothers, nor did they call each other lovers — all they said is that they were best friends. And a lot of people are best friends with their brothers but also a lot of lovers are best friends so
you are allowed to have your opinion friend, just don’t tell me mine is wrong — if you don’t like the ship, read the tag and don’t read the fic!
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